OT: Monitor display

Maverick wrote on 4/2/2004, 5:03 PM

I have an iiyama Vision Master 1451 CRT monitor and Radeon 7200 Series AGPx4 graphics card. Currently I have been using a display of 1600x1200 which is quite adequate for my needs. Sometimes, though, a larger area would be nice.

I recently downloaded an update and have just noticed that the display in Display Properties now goes up to 2048x1536 via 6 steps.

My question is...

Are these extra settings there because the upgrade is to suit a multitude of CRTs or are they safe to try out. I am a little afraid of damaging my monitor in some way.

Also, there is a new choice between Direct3D and OpenGL. Can anyone point me towars some info about what these option are, please.

Any advice would be apprecaited.

Cheers

Comments

riredale wrote on 4/2/2004, 7:25 PM

You could try the higher settings, but all it will do is make the text even smaller and harder to read. On my 19" monitor I still use 1024x768 and am happy with it. If I get a 22" display I'll start fooling around with higher resolutions.

I don't think Vegas uses Direct3D callouts. It will make a big difference with recent-vintage games you play on the PC, however.

Maverick wrote on 4/3/2004, 8:25 AM

Thanks riedale. Maybe you are right and the text will be too small - but I will have a look anyway.

I don't play many games and those that I do are not graphic intensive in anyway (high-frame rate,). Would I get any noticable improvemnt by switching OpenGL?

Cheers

johnmeyer wrote on 4/3/2004, 8:53 AM

The refresh rate (60 Hz, 72 Hz, etc.) is what kills monitors, if you go higher than they can handle. If you to a resolution higher than what the display can handle, it simply won't sync up. That is why, when you change resolution, you get a message saying that if you don't accept the new resolution within 15 seconds, it will revert back to the previous resolution. Thus, if you want to try out the higher resolutions, go ahead. If you get a garbled display, just wait 15 seconds and it will go back to what it was before.

My guess is that unless you have a gigantic monitor, the resolutions you mention will be completely unusable.Everything will be way too smal. Also, it may start to affect performance. You are moving a lot of pixels around at those resolutions, especially if you use 32-bit color depth.

Maverick wrote on 4/5/2004, 10:56 AM

Thanks for all the advice:-)